AGARTALA, March 6: Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar has sought Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's intervention in the controversy arising out of the withdrawal of central Excise duty exemption for setting up industries in the Northeast. A section of local entrepreneurs alleged that tax benefits were being cornered by unscrupulous investors from outside the state. Official sources here said during his visit to Guwahati on December 24, 1997 the then Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral had announced an incentive package for setting up industries in the Northeast. The Union finance ministry...

NEW DELHI, March 6: The possibility of a BJP-AGP pre-poll tie-up in Assam appears bleak, with the central leadership of the national party likely to give in to the demand of its State unit and may instead go for alliance with area-specific smaller regional parties. The party's central leadership today began the crucial exercise of finalising its poll strategy and seat-sharing arrangements in the four States of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal and Assam, besides the Union Territory of Pondicherry by holding detailed deliberations with the State unit leadership of the concerned States. The poll...

SHILLONG, March 6: The Khasi Students' Union (KSU) has defended its FIR against the Meghalaya Government's alleged corruption and 'wasteful' expenditure of public money to the tune of Rs 5.80 crore. In a FIR submitted to the SP, East Khasi Hills district last week, the KSU had accused the Chief Minister, his ministerial colleagues and the IAS officers with indulging in 'wasteful' expenditure of public money and corruption. Urging the SP to investigate the matter, the KSU questioned the expenditure of Rs 5.80 crore by the 'poor servants of the people,' on perks and benefits of office from April...

GUWAHATI, March 6: Less than 15 per cent of the persons declared as foreigners by the tribunals under the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) [IMDT] Act can be deported from Assam as the provisions of the Act are loaded heavily against the police personnel engaged in the job of detecting and deporting foreigners. According to records available, during the period from 1985 to November last year, the Border police wing of the Assam Police initiated 319109 inquiries under the IMDT Act and 314519 of the inquiries were completed. The police referred 307407 inquiries to the screening...

SHILLONG, March 6: The Meghalaya Government has ruled out the allegation made by Khasi Students' Union (KSU) that the Chief Minister, his ministerial colleagues and the IAS officers in the State, indulged in wasteful expenditure to the tune of about Rs six core in just 16 months, reports UNI. Clarifying the government position, an official release yesterday said that all these expenses for the relevant period from April 1, 1999 to August 15, 2000, were made on facilities like salary, medical treatment, TA, telephone bills and so on and so forth to which ministers and bureaucrats were entitled...